


our daily bread

by twoif



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Cooking, Five Times, M/M, Tortuously Expressing Affection Through Mundane Domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:16:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoif/pseuds/twoif
Summary: 5 meals Kagami Taiga makes.
  For Alex's last meal in Tokyo, Kagami makes omurice with demiglace sauce, decorated with a little Japanese flag, served with two sprigs of parsley, restaurant perfect. She's two beers into the night by the time he's done cooking, and a little weepy when he brings the plates to the coffee table. "You've both grown up so fast," she wails, trying to get him to take a swig from her can. "Do you remember how small you were when I first met you? Tiny. And now look at you."





	

1\. 

Sandwiches for Himuro, when they were younger and burned endless calories practicing how to dunk on each other. Loser had to make them, was the rule, so they traded off almost every day. The peanut butter and pickle ones were Himuro's favorites. He liked them best without the crusts, on bread as white as clouds. Kagami didn't like them at all. "You know these are supposed to go with _jelly_ ," Kagami would protest, picking the pickles off and throwing them at Himuro, who would methodically add the discarded slices onto his own sandwiches and take a large, stagey bite. 

"You've gone native, Taiga," Himuro would tease, and then they'd play another round.

When Seirin loses in the quarterfinals of interhigh his sophomore year, Kagami makes them again for the whole team. Riko is the only one who wolfs them down without blinking. "How are they?" Kagami asks, handing Kuroko a glass of milk.

"They're terrible," Kuroko says, eyeing Kagami with a distinct look of betrayal.

"Yeah," Kagami says happily, "they really are."

 

 

2\. 

For Alex's last meal in Tokyo, Kagami makes omurice with demiglace sauce, decorated with a little Japanese flag, served with two sprigs of parsley, restaurant perfect. She's two beers into the night by the time he's done cooking, and a little weepy when he brings the plates to the coffee table. "You've both grown up so fast," she wails, trying to get him to take a swig from her can. "Do you remember how small you were when I first met you? Tiny. And now look at you."

"You always told me I was tall for my age," he grumbles.

"A tall, tiny baby," she informs him, and a beer and a Chu-Hi later eats his omelette too. 

He goes with her to the station the next day, early in the morning for the eight-hour train ride she'll take to Akita. "You'll visit me at Yosen, won't you?" she asks, face pressed up against his. "You can bring that little chibi of yours along. I'll make Tatsuya find you guys a private room on campus. All alone, no parents, no team. Think of it as my gift to you."

Kagami shoves a bag of water and snacks and a home-made bento at her, turning bright red. "Just leave already," he snaps, and she kisses him on the lips before skipping away.

 

 

3.

His father gets some time off and comes for the winter holidays his senior year. "Don't you want to eat out?" Kagami asks, when it's the second night and his father seems content to just sit in the apartment with him, reading work papers with the TV set to the year-end music shows on very low volume. "You know, sushi or something?"

"Don't mind me," his father says, absently marking up something. "Just do what you would have normally."

So Kagami makes dakgalbi with plenty of rice cake and serves it with seaweed soup and radish pickles. His father laughs when he sees Kagami serving himself a huge bowl of rice too. "Your appetite hasn't changed, I see," he says, examining the mound as if for structural integrity.

"I'm still growing," Kagami says, a little defensively, and waits for his father to start eating first.

When his father is doing one last turn in the apartment, packing for his return trip to California, he pauses in front of Kagami's bookshelf. There's a box of succulents, some DVDs and magazines, and a framed picture of the Seirin team from the first Winter Cup. "Taiga," his father says, gently wiping dust from the top of the frame, "you're not lonely here, are you?"

Kagami puts his ring in his mouth, tastes the sweat-like tang of metal, the way it feels just a little warm from resting against his chest. It's a bad habit Kuroko always picks at him for, _it'll rust if you keep doing that, Kagami-kun_. 

"No," Kagami says, smiling. "Not anymore."

 

 

4.

After Momoi's third boyfriend breaks up with her, she crashes Kuroko's apartment at night, makeup ruined and slinging a bag of beer. "All men are dogs," she declares as Kuroko warms up milk for hot cocoa, dark and bitter the way she likes it. "If it's not one thing, it's another with them. Tetsu-kun, you'll marry me, right?"

"This is where I tell you that Aomine-kun already told me you made a pact in second grade to marry each other if you're both single at 25," Kuroko says, grinning. "Momoi-san is just using me to get out of that deal."

Momoi snorts. "Actually this is where you tell me that I interrupted your date with Kagamin," she says. When Kuroko just stares, she adds, "His shoes are in your entranceway and the only person with bigger feet is housesitting for his grandma in the boonies."

"We weren't trying to hide it," Kagami says, feeling guilty as he creeps out of Kuroko's bedroom. 

"No, not very well," Momoi tells him snidely, but winks at him from where she is cuddled up next to Kuroko. "Now make yourself useful and cook something. I'm sloppy if I drink on an empty stomach."

The things in Kuroko's kitchen are all Kagami's spares — a small saucepan, an old frying pan, mismatched plates, a forgotten spatula. Kuroko spends most of his evenings with Kagami and doesn't have much in his refrigerator. Still, Kagami makes them ramen with cheese and egg-fried rice. Momoi talks a big game, but ends up only drinking a little, falling asleep with her head cradled against Kuroko's shoulder. 

"I wonder why she didn't ask _me_ to marry her?" Kagami whispers as he tucks a blanket over both of them.

"Didn't I already make you an honest woman?" Kuroko jokes, and dodges the swat Kagami aims at his head. 

 

 

5.

The first time they fight, really fight, is a few months after they actually move in together. It's about something small — Kagami going to the states for a training camp without telling Kuroko that he'd be gone for the weekend, or Kuroko letting Aomine crash at their apartment last week when he missed the last train, or someone borrowed something without asking, _the kind of thing only only children fight about_ , Kise might have said. It takes a few sharp words for the whole thing to blow out of control. "You always make decisions by yourself," Kuroko snaps, and "That's because they're just stupid little decisions that don't affect you," Kagami retorts, and "Does it ever occur to you that I might have _feelings_?" Kuroko seethes, and "Does it ever occur to _you_ that I'm not stupid?" Kagami shouts as he crams the pair of mugs he'd been washing onto the drying rack with a loud thunk. 

Kuroko flinches, and that upsets Kagami even more. "I'm not an idiot," he says. "I'm not the dumb high school student you first met who couldn't even write proper Japanese. We're both _adults_ , Kuroko."

Which is when Kuroko walks into their bedroom, throws on some gym shorts and a t-shirt, and walks out of the apartment.

Kagami waits for a few minutes, then curses and laces up his Nikes. He knows there's only one place Kuroko would go. He brings a basketball, because he knows that in his haste to leave, Kuroko forgot to take one. On his way there, he buys them both a bottle of Pocari Sweat.

Under the lights of the streetball court, Kuroko is a little beacon of white and blue. He is miming dribbling, a feint, a shaky lay-up. He doesn't look at Kagami when Kagami bangs the fence door coming in, but he catches Kagami's pass perfectly, palming the rough surface of the basketball in his hands. "I'm sorry," he says, the first one to apologize, because he's always been better at words. "I didn't mean to be condescending."

Kuroko passes the ball back to Kagami. He catches it. "You weren't," he says. "I'm sorry too." 

"It's been difficult, giving up the idea that I'd be with you through everything," Kuroko says, not looking at Kagami. "I keep thinking, _I'll be left behind_."

Kagami swallows hard, his mouth dry. When he passes the ball back to Kuroko, it goes wild, and Kuroko has to chase after it, just outside the light of the courtside lamp. 

"You're always with me," Kagami croaks, "even when you're not."

From the edge of darkness, Kuroko shoots the ball. It makes it in, just barely, and Kagami feels his body moving without him, taking him to where he knows it must land.

When they get back to the apartment, Kagami makes vegetable and noodle stir-fry. Carrots and snap peas. Onions cooked down until they're sweet and brown. Enokis and dried shiitakes, just what Kagami has on hand. Fried tofu sliced into thin strips. Plenty of ginger, soy sauce, in a gravy thickened with egg. A sprinkle of green onions, the tiny kind that Kuroko likes best. They don't talk as they wash the vegetables, or slice the onions, or heat up the wok. Even still, they work perfectly, hand in hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- unbetaed and all mistakes are mine (they always are)  
> \- dedicated to the number one member of the "kagami taiga is an angel" fanclub, aosa  
> \- Written as part of KagaKuro Week 2016 (Day 5: since you're my partner I am always with I know a lot about you // familiarity | affection)


End file.
